


Loop

by Arukou



Series: Tumblr Archive [5]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mental Conditioning, Natasha Feels, Pre-Avengers (2012), Red Room, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hand-cuff winks at Natasha, laughs at her. Even free of the Red Room, she's not free of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loop

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Dottie's background in Agent Carter and original posted [on tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/post/114445290866/untitled-clintnatasha-rating-teen-and-up).

She stares down at the glinting metal in her hand and hates it almost as much as she hates the people who trained her to need it. She knows from experience, from long nights staring up at pockmarked, water-stained ceilings with unblinking eyes, that she can’t sleep without it. She would never sleep again if she could choose to, but regrettably her body is very much human and has its limits.

He’s noticed, in the same way his sharp eyes notice everything. They don’t sleep in the same bed. They fuck sometimes and then he goes in the other room and keeps watch with his piercing eyes. But he’s still noticed this stupid weakness in her.

She should kill him, the man who is a mercenary but not a mercenary. He was sent to kill her, and the time when she sleeps, chained to her own bed, is when she’s most vulnerable. All he has to do is wait. But he hasn’t killed her yet, and it confuses her more than anything. He watches and speaks often, but he never says anything of substance. He’s killing time instead of her and she wants to know why he doesn’t just end it. It might be easier in death. She wouldn’t need these goddamn handcuffs anymore.

Grinding her teeth, she glares down at them again, inhaling deeply and then exhaling. Just as she’s about to close the shackle, though, a hand is on her wrist. _Grab. Twist. Pull back. Twist again. Pressure to the shoulder. Prepare for dislocation._ She stops before she pops the limb from its socket, pressing him down into the bed with a knee in his spine. He didn’t fight her on the way down and she doesn’t understand him at all. Why didn’t he wait until she was bound? What is his game?

“This is different,” he says into the cheap polyester of the comforter, and she can hear the wry smirk in his voice. “You in the mood for something kinky?”

She doesn’t relinquish her hold, but she eases back a bit, a few degrees farther from imminent pain for him. “I’m not in the mood for anything,” she finally says, “except sleep.”

He twists his head, dull blonde hair brushing against her forearm until he can see her from the corner of his eye. “But to sleep you need this thing, right?” He wriggles the fingers of his right hand and the cuffs jangle. When did he take them from her? She didn’t even notice them slipping away.

Tight-lipped she waits. She may have this weakness, this stupid programming that clings to her like a filthy, oily film, but she doesn’t have to acknowledge it. She didn’t fight for her own autonomy only to have to admit that she must relinquish it sometimes, even now.

“I thought,” he says, twisting a little more so that she can see more of his face, “we could try something about that.” 

For a moment longer, she keeps him pinned to the bed while she deliberates. His mission is to kill her, but he hasn’t killed her yet. What is his game? What does he want? They’re already having sex, so it can’t be that. She doesn’t understand this strange, stupid man. But curiosity, that thing so long repressed by the Red Room, niggles at the back of her mind, like an itch she can’t quite scratch. She lets him up and backs away to the other side of the bed.

He sits up, grinning and rubbing his shoulder. “Thanks for not dislocating that, by the way. I’m useless if I can’t shoot.”

She knows he’s far from it, but doesn’t comment.

Dangling the cuffs from his fingers, he leans forward. “First thing we’re gonna do is this,” he says, still smiling, and he lobs the cuffs over his shoulder. They land in the plastic waste bin with a thunk, and against her better judgment, she is again terribly impressed by his aim, his ability to calculate angle, trajectory, velocity, inertia. Maybe she can improve her sniping under his tutelage. But then she blinks. No. He will kill her or she will kill him. There is no other outcome.

“Now,” he says, leaning forward, face growing serious, “just…let me try something.” She watches and wonders if he thinks sex will make her drift to sleep. It won’t. It never has.

He reaches out with careful fingers, telegraphing every movement with the greatest of care, and touches her bare shoulder. She doesn’t know what to make of this. He’s not moving to kiss her, and he’s not drawing the rest of his body any closer. It’s just his fingers on her skin.

A minute stretches long as they wait together, gauging each other, and then he begins to slide his hand down her arm, the whisper soft touch raising gooseflesh in its wake. She glances down and back up to him, more confused than ever, but his face is drawn in the same concentration he shows when he’s sniping, and she doesn’t want to break that.

At last he reaches her wrist and traces the scarring stark against her pale skin, his fingers riding the bumps and ridges left by years of enslavement. “Trust me,” he says, catching her eyes and holding them. She wants to tell him that trust is for the stupid and naive, but then he encircles her wrist, clasping firmly.

The wave of drowsiness hits her like a truck, but this is not acceptable. He is touching her and holding her and restraining her with only the pressure of bird, and she cannot fight it; her lids are already dropping. She glances down, sees the way his thumb overlaps his middle finger, feels the way his pinky finger digs into her ulna, and feels a thrill of fear and relief. This is how she will die, with his hand warm on her wrist, in her inevitable sleep.

He’s guiding her down to the bed now, his thousand-yard stare on her drooping eyes. “Trust me,” he says again as she fades off to sleep, and for some strange, unfathomable reason, for just a fraction of a second, she does.

* * *

When she wakes in the morning, he’s laid out beside her, staring at her. His hand is still clasped around her wrist, his grip unfailing. They watch each other, and she feels something shift and rearrange itself inside her, because she is alive on a bed next to the mercenary who is not a mercenary who was sent to kill her but hasn’t. As the early morning light moves across their bodies, he slowly grins. “Morning, sunshine,” he says finally, relinquishing his grasp and withdrawing from her space. “How do you feel about eggs for breakfast?”

**Author's Note:**

> For more fanfiction and nerdery you can find me at [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/).


End file.
